Forbes India Rewind 2022: Our most loved podcasts of the year

From Nirmal Jain of IIFL Group to Sunil Vachani of Dixon Technologies contributed to our podcasts this year.

Take a look at our most heard and loved podcasts of the year. It's a mixed bag.

1) Capital Ideas — Budget 2022 Nirmal Jain: Focus should be on growth and, more importantly on creating jobs

Podcaster: Pooja Sarkar

Forbes India’s Pooja Sarkar spoke with Nirmal Jain, founder and chairman of IIFL Group, to understand his expectations of the budget for 2022 and how it’ll impact the fiscal deficit in India. Jain projected that government would fall short of the disinvestment targets for 2022, just like they did for 2021. Projecting a strong capex cycle and overall growth just ahead of the budget announcement, Jain discussed government priorities of economic growth and job revival, inflationary concerns across the globe, how it will affect emerging markets, and why new-age investors with a low risk appetite should stay clear of investing in startups. “Lending will grow, keeping the stock market aside, macroeconomic conditions in India are very strong and the budget will have the much larger allocation for capex and public sector spending,” he said optimistically on January 28, 2022.

2) Daily Tech Conversation: Francisco D'Souza on his next innings, backing a new generation of IP-led tech services companies

Podcaster: Harichandan Arakali

Forbes India’s Harichandan Arakali spoke with Francisco D’Souza, co-founder and former CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions. In 2020, after more than 25 years at Cognizant, Francisco stepped back from the IT services giant he helped found and build. He’s now looking ahead at his next innings, as co-founder and managing partner at RECOGNIZE, a US-based private equity firm that will focus on a new generation of deep intellectual property-led tech services ventures. At RECOGNIZE, Francisco has teamed up with Charles Phillips, former CEO and Chairman of Infor and former President of Oracle, and David Wasserman, a former Partner at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, leading their technology and services vertical. The firm raised $1.25 billion for its first fund and made some investments in companies that Francisco believes will be among the winners in the tech services arena of the future, bringing sophisticated domain knowledge and IP to the game and focusing on real outcomes for their customers. From RECOGNIZE’s take on its portfolio companies building an ecosystem greater than the individual capabilities of those startups to discussing the markets for the next generation of IP-led tech services companies, D’Souza brings to you the ins and outs of working in the tech industry.
 

3) Daily Tech Conversation: Manish Dabkara at EKI Energy Services on building a billion-dollar market cap carbon credits company

Podcaster: Harichandan Arakali

Harichandan Arakali spoke with Manish Dabkara, CMD and CEO of EKI Energy Services, a BSE SME-listed company that shot to a billion dollars in market value within nine months of going public in April 2021. The company, that he started building after one year of working in a corporate set-up, helps businesses make their projects more sustainable, and trade their carbon credits. From discussing their efforts in reducing the carbon credits industry to scaling the company globally, Dabkara talks about the journey and the opportunities ahead. “In India, there have been very few players in the carbon credits industry, and we’re the only listed company in this sector in the world,” Dabkara points out in the podcast.
 

4) Daily Tech Conversation: Rohan Murty on tackling the 'toggling tax' with Soroco's work graph, bringing empathy to the digital worker's last mile

Podcaster: Harichandan Arakali

Rohan N Murty, founder and CTO of Soroco, talks about bringing empathy to dealing with the last mile friction that the modern digital enterprise employee faces, by harnessing data. Soroco offers a 'work graph,' which is a map of how teams execute digital work, and it lies at the intersection of people, work, and technology. Once discovered, the work graph enables teams to collaborate and work more effectively, raising the overall productivity of the enterprise. From wanting to teach computer science to building Soroco, which was received with scepticism when he started, Murthy reminisces about his entrepreneurial journey and attempt to bridge the demand-supply gap through Soroco. “Business success is important, but what drives me, and the co-founders, is the ability to create positive confidence in the society we live in,” he says in the podcast.
 

5) Daily Tech Conversation: Dhruva Goyal, co-founder and CEO of BugBase, on life as an ethical hacker and entrepreneur

Podcaster: Harichandan Arakali

In this episode, Dhruva Goyal, co-founder and CEO of BugBase, talks about how he and his schoolmate Kathan Desai went from tackling hackathons to dropping out of engineering college to set up their ethical hackers’ marketplace. He also talks about bug bounties as a career choice and plans at their Bengaluru startup that has already won the second round of funding, after finding early backing from 100X VC. “Our priority is on barding more companies. With the funding coming in, we want to expand further and by March 2023 have more than 60 companies who are actively doing bug bounties on our platform,” says Goyal in a free-flowing conversation.

6) Daily Tech Conversation: Manas Fuloria, CEO of Nagarro, on the digital product engineering company's next phase of growth

Podcaster: Harichandan Arakali

Listen to the CEO, the ‘custodian of entrepreneurship’, Manas Fuloria, talk about the journey of the company from how it got its name—quite an interesting anecdote—to what is its core philosophy. Fuloria also gives insights into his entrepreneurial journey, the mistakes made along the way and his learnings. One of the most important ones being, “Don’t work with someone you can’t trust implicitly.” This and a lot more, especially for tech entrepreneurs who’re ready to embark on a new journey of establishing a business and wanting to taste success.

7) Daily Tech Conversation: Krishnan Ramanujam at TCS on the IT services giant's ongoing effort to build cloud ecosystems for customers—Part 1

Podcaster: Harichandan Arakali

Among the many changes we saw due to the pandemic, one of the most noticeable ones was the decisive turn made towards going the cloud route. “Now there’s no going back,” says the president and head of business and technology services at Tata Consultancy Services, Krishnan Ramanujam, in this podcast. Explore the relevance of cloud ecosystems, its major attractions besides the cost advantage and better cyber security, and why it is becoming popular. Ramanujam says TCS began moving to the cloud six years ago, and the company has always been the biggest proponent of why the cloud is great.

8) Inside Forbes India: Inside the first-ever Forbes India-INCA Top 100 Digital Stars issue

Podcaster: Naini Thaker

This was the first year for a new list—India’s Top 100 Digital Stars. Content creators mean serious business, and content creation is far from being a “shallow” profession, as the anchor of the issue, Naini Thaker says, in this cover story podcast. From the association with INCA, the agency that helped us with the list with its algorithm-based technology, to the struggles and stories of content creators, Thaker takes us through the highlights of putting this issue together. One takeaway: Creativity, consistency, and hard work are the key to success in any profession. And content creators know it well.

9) Daily Tech Conversation: Vindhya C on demystifying product management and how to go from MVP to 'minimum loveable product'

Podcaster: Harichandan Arakali

In this episode, Vindhya C, the cofounder of the e-learning startup OnThatJob, talks about A-Z of product management. From what it is, to busting myths and misconceptions, she walks us through the nitty-gritty of the job. Product management, like some other concepts, has also seen a fundamental shift in the past two years, with Covid-19 changing its meaning. Vindhya talks about why it has become an important part of the startup ecosystem and its relevance. Listen to it all by someone who was named the product manager of the year 2019, by Hacker Noons, an online community of techies.

10) Inside Forbes India: How Sunil Vachani built Dixon Technologies into an electronics manufacturing behemoth

Podcaster: Naini Thaker

In this cover story podcast series, take a look at Sunil Vachani, the man behind Dixon Technologies. The company manufactures electronics for some of the largest companies in India and around the world, including Xiaomi, Panasonic, Motorola and so on. Listen to this to know the setbacks, failures, his experience of joining his father’s business and setting up a business, before Dixon became what it is today. Thaker also shares her experience visiting the company’s Noida factory, and answers questions related to what has led to its success. It’s not hard to guess that one reason is quality. “When people think of outsourcing, they should think Dixon,” says Vachani.

To discover more podcasts from Forbes India, click here. Happy listening!

Check Out: Rewind 2022: Year in Review